One evening, gazing at the collection of art books in her Florentine apartment, art historian Cecilia Cosci felt the urge to cut them up. As she scissored pages of old masterpieces, the inert figures started coming to life and forming stories in her imagination, which she later laid down on paper. ‘Montages,’ Cosci likes to call them; not static, but dynamic storyboards arranged like stills of a movie. In the guise of a film director, Cosci borrows characters from Renaissance masterpieces, staging powerful visual narratives with a Dadaist-Surrealist flair. Playing God, just for a moment, the artist casts her divine eye on us humans, unearthing the iniquities of our society with a mix of irony, compassion, and subtle condemnation. Through minimalist, yet striking visuals Cosci tells universal stories of love, motherhood, inequality, and faith. Her saints, gods, and Madonnas are torn from the heavenly realms onto the land of common mortals to act out the tragedies of this world.
Cosci holds a degree in Literature and Philosophy with a minor in Art History from Università degli Studi di Firenze. A budding artist, she had a solo exhibition at Tobian Art Gallery in Florence in May 2021 and received coverage in prestigious Italian newspapers such as Il Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica. Cosci lives and works in Florence, Italy.
